Shot To The Heart

I was 24 years old when Zoe was born. I was trying to finish college, living with my parents and going through a divorce. I didn't have a blog back then, much less a digital camera, and I my memory of some of her firsts are fuzzy. I know she cut her first tooth at three months and could speak in sentences when she was eleven months old. I don't remember Zoe ever getting a haircut besides the one she gave herself when she was two. She bobbed her hair on both sides of her face and then hid the hair in a trash can in my mother's bathroom.

I spent most of Zoe's babyhood wishing she would grow up. Taking care of a baby when you don't know what the hell you are doing is hard.

I was 31 when Baby Troy made it on to the scene. I knew a bit more about taking care of babies.

But mostly, I know that all of a sudden you blink and your teeny tiny baby isn't a baby. He's 25 months old and getting his first haircut.



We took him on Saturday afternoon because Jeff and Zoe had an appointment to get a trim with Michelle, our stylist. Jeff and Michelle have known each other since they were twelve, their moms are both from the same village in Thailand and somehow ended up in the same town in Colorado. Since Michelle is Thai and the hotness and practically family, I decided she would have the honors of Troy's first haircut.



Troy did amazing. I was on the fence about the haircut, but the back of his hair was longer on one side than the other and I could no longer get a comb through it. He was pretty much "It's about time I looked respectable", Jeff looked like he was about to lose it, I took 154 photos and Zoe was in charge of catching Troy's locks into a ziplock bag. Oh-yes-I-did.

I might not be the best at potty training, my kids couldn't read at eighteen months and they probably both took a bottle way longer than they should have, but I do know that babies are only babies for a bit. A short moment.

I am given these moments as their mother to have and to do with them what I wish. My wish is that my children know I love them to the moon and back. That I remember. They will forever be my babies. It was much more to me than a haircut; it is a stepping stone to Troy growing up, the first of many.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go cry into a bag of hair.




We arrived at the salon with Baby T. And left with Little Boy Troy.




And I have them both in my heart.



Always.